Memory of Orchids
by Foxie
Summary: Is it better to live with a forgotten past rather than having painful memories of it? {Side-story to "Past Forgotten, Past Denied"; Post Glühen} Slight AY


A/N: I was browsing through some unfinished drawings I had in my drawer and found a quick sketch of Yoji with the text: "I caught a scent of roses and remembered." This, of course, made my inspiration-less mind to produce a piece of FanFiction I needed to get out of my system.   
  
I haven't had this beta-d, and if I decide not to like this, I'll probably take this down. For now I'll let it be.  
  
This is a side-story of sorts for my fic "Past Forgotten, Past Denied" and pretty much follows the same plot-line except that this is Yoji's view of the things... Uh, what am I blabbering, let the fic do the talking.  
  
And by the way. Remind me to give a proper beating to my dear Mr. Inspiration once he comes back. I'm not too fond of living with an author's block...  
  
Yoji POV  
  
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Memory of Orchids   
  
It never was difficult taking up a new life since I didn't even remember the past one. My mind had completely wiped away the remains of the old me and sometimes I really thought it was for the best. Perhaps I had been living a life of pain and the amnesia had been a blessing.   
  
At first I did my best to remember. I tried so hard it sometimes made me want to cry, as it was good for nothing; my past was all blur. Little by little I gave up and settled into my new life. If that was what you could call it, that is, for I had no "old" life to remember.   
  
Sometimes little things such as certain words or images stirred something in the depths of my consciousness. It was never enough, though. Just a flash that was over almost before I had noticed it had been there. Those little mementos kept me aware of the fact that I had not always been living like this.   
  
One thing above all reminded me of something. I noticed it already when I was still in the hospital and someone had brought a bouquet of red roses to my bedside table. The scent of those flowers moved something inside me. It made a mixture of red and deep purple cross through my mind and always left me wondering for the reason. Those colors even haunted my dreams.   
  
I kept buying myself a single rose every now and then. Maybe because I wanted to have something to remind me of my past even though I didn't know what it reminded me of.   
  
Slowly but certainly my mental images of red and purple mess became clearer and the purple separated from the red to take the shape of two piercing eyes. I found myself dreaming of those eyes repeatedly and after every dream the vision grew to be brighter and brighter.   
  
Amidst the still slightly blurred images rose the word with the meaning of an orchid. I spent many nights trying to figure out why in the hell did the color of a rose make me think of orchids and couldn't find a rational answer.   
  
Asuka worried over me. She didn't like the way I had suddenly fallen back to the memories I didn't have. I let her worry. No matter how happy I was with her and my life, I still wanted to have a little piece of my past.   
  
Ran, orchid. The word rang in my head day after day. Somehow I knew it had nothing to do with the flowers. It was something else.   
  
Then he called. There was nothing unusual about the way the telephone rang but when I picked up the receiver, I knew something was going to change.  
  
He called me by someone else's name that I knew was - or had been - mine. I told him it wasn't what I was called anymore and I could tell he already knew. And I knew he was Ran.   
  
He wanted to see me, he asked me directly if he could. Something in me died then. The great will to know my past disappeared and was replaced with the feeling of suffocation. I was afraid.   
  
And I told him I couldn't. I knew that I would break if I did. I wanted to bury my past there and then. And I told him I was sorry.   
  
After I put the receiver back to its place I felt a strange weight on my entire being. It was as if everything forgotten was coming back in an unsolved knot and now hovered above me making me feel things I wasn't able to recognize. Above all was the feeling of suffocation - the same that had taken place when Ran had spoken to me.   
  
I threw away my roses and held my wife until I could breathe again.   
  
I didn't want to remember anymore. I didn't need to know of things that made me feel the way they did.   
  
And I did forget. To be quite honest I felt much better when I didn't bother myself with questions that had no answers. I continued on with my life from where I had left it when I had began trying to remember too much.   
  
But he didn't leave me alone. Sometime in the early spring when I had just walked in through the door Asuka handed me the phone. And there he was again.   
  
He said he was sorry for calling and I could hear from his voice that he really was. He and I obviously had had something unsettled in the past and he was trying to find a way to make it right. Too bad that I had no memory of it.   
  
And he asked me again if he could see me. Or more likely guessed that it wasn't possible. He was right.   
  
I think that somewhere between the lines he said he had been missing me. That time I didn't bother to pay attention to those words but later on they kept bothering me. I almost felt sorry for not agreeing to see the man, Ran.   
  
When I said goodbye I felt empty. I had let go of the final thread that had connected me to my old life and I had done it freely.   
  
But I swore to continue with the life I had. What could one do with a life they had no memory of?  
  
Nothing.  
  
And I lived on.   
  
~FIN  
  
Comments...? 


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